On Saturday, December 18, 2021, Telangana witnessed its first openly homosexual wedding, and not only the couple but even the guests at the ceremony were overjoyed.
The wedding took place at a private resort in Vikarabad, and was attended by the newlyweds' close friends, family, and members of the LGBTQ+ community in Hyderabad. So it's official: Supriyo Chakraborty and Abhay Dang are now husband and husband. In their white suits, the grooms looked dashing for the dream wedding.
The fact that the wedding ceremony was officiated by a trans woman from Hyderabad, Sophia David, added to the intrigue and revolution.
“I felt overwhelmed, because after the grooms said, ‘I do’, I got the audience also to declare their visible allyship… and they said ‘I do’ too, wholeheartedly,” Sophia told a publication.
Sophia David was officiating her first homosexual wedding and it was also her first time attending one. She is also most likely India's first female officiant. "I was really nervous because it's not like I was handling a job client, but I was doing it for two very dear friends, so the stakes are a lot greater," she says of her experience. “The nicest part was that Abhay and Supriyo allowed me complete control over the ceremony and the events that followed," she continued.
The term that best describes the entire event, according to Sophia David, is 'emotional.' "We were all emotional, the grooms were emotional, and our guests were teary-eyed and moved by the entire ceremony," she says. It was a genuine outpouring of love, support, and emotion, as weddings should be. Furthermore, I knew this would make a significant difference in the discourse in India about queer rights and marriage equality, which fuelled our passion and devotion since representation is crucial now," she added.